Player Features and Ideas Discussion

With 122 pages I simply don't have the interest or energy to read through this topic to see if any of what I'm about to say has been mentioned. That said...

One thing that seems to be missing from the thought processes about people complaining about the usefulness of the proposed tracking/range bonus is how it affects smaller drones. Warrior IIs will have an optimal of 1875m along with a tracking speed of 4.86 at GalBS5. If they're dangerous for interceptors now then come expansion they'll run the risk of being positively lethal to them.

As for the second thing it deals with making the dominix unique and separating it from the proposed armageddon. It's a simple solution, and like all simple solutions it's probably a "bad" solution. It is still, in my opinion, a solution that can cover the current situation. Simply make 3 changes to the current dominix proposal.
#1 Remove one or two turret hardpoints.
#2 Increase the dominix's bandwidth by 25mb.
#3 Allow the dominix to fit one Drone Control Unit.

If you remove two turret hardpoints while also allowing the dominix to field a sixth heavy/sentry drone it will do approximately as much DPS as it does now while further emphasizing the drone orientation of the ship and the "more/heavier deployed drones" philosophy that CCP is trying to apply to Gallente drone boats as compared to Amarr drone boats and their "more reloads" philosophy.

As I said though, it's a simple solution and it involves mixing things up in a way that CCP often frowns upon so it's likely not a good solution, but it does manage to cover the bases and make the dominix a bit more unique

Honestly, I'd think getting a sub-cap ship that can get six drones in space with the aid of a DCU would be hard enough that getting a sub-cap ship fielding 10 drones without them would be downright impossible.

Also, did you intentionally not suggest modifying the dominix's bandwidth? I ask because if you don't give it increased bandwidth you're effectively removing heavy drones from any dominix lineup flown by pilots with GalBS5. Given that 10 hammerheads do as much DPS as 5 ogres, travel faster, are less painful to lose on a per drone basis, and, at least in PvP, give your opponents more targets to focus on if they attack drones before ships there would be little, if any, reason to use ogres at that point. That's not even getting into the whole thing where the drone bay can hold 37 hammerheads but only 15 ogres.

(10) Sentries would be so ridiculously OP that CCP would nerf it the day it went live. Can you even imagine 1600 DPS in your face at up to 60km away instantly, changing targets at will with zero travel time, ability to set ALL Sentries from EVERY ship to support DPS from a single ship. There has been fantastic results with the Ishtar Sentry Alpha fleets. 40+ of them will melt anything sub cap instantly.

There is no reason to bring back more than (5) Drones per sub cap ship, none. All CCP has to do is increase the Primary Ship bonus Drone Dmg/HP of 10% per LvL to 15% per LvL and that's the same as an additional Drone at LvL 5. It would put those type of ships at ~1000 DPS with Heavy/Sentry Drones and 3-4 DDA's which is just about right for Drone DPS as a primary weapon system on actual Drone boats. They would need to reduce the number of weapon hardpoints on those ships by 1-2 to keep the DPS in line but that's no issue to real Drone users.

Heh, just read the post above mine. So... Consensus on the Domi issue? Increase drone damage bonus to 12.5% or 15% and reduce weapon hardpoints? (and increase drone bay?)

All in favour say yay, all opposed say nay.

AND, keep the new secondary bonus so my Garde IIs are stupidly OP

Actually there would still be a reason to do it, and that reason would be to keep the dominix in line with the sub-battleship design philosophies for Amarr and Gallente drone boats. Amarr ships are supposed to be fewer/smaller drones on the field at once with more "reloads" for them while Gallente ships are supposed to field larger drones and/or more of them while being more sensitive to drone losses.

One of the things I noted in this topic was that the armageddon was highly unlikely to go below 125mb. Whether this is as likely as the dominix exceeding 125mb and getting the support necessary to make use of it I couldn't say, but if dropping the armageddon to below the dominix in terms of bandwidth is not a favorable solution then increasing the dominix's bandwidth might be.

Going back to the max 10 drones of yore would likely be a mistake, but CCP has made some pretty solid strides over the years with improving server hardware and the performance of the server software. It might not be a bad time to at least consider lifting the 5 drone cap for one or two drone boats and give them a six, seven tops, drone cap.



At this point you might as well consider a 10%/level bonus to all core attributes, excepting resistances and stats like mass/sig, and a 5km/level bonus to drone control range. This means increased MWD/orbit speed, optimal/falloff range, tracking speed, damage, more effective EW/neut/rep drones, and so on, and they do it at base ranges up to 75km.

Could we get a better change than 10% more hit points per level for drones? I'd much rather have a resist or sig radius reduction.

Okay, here's round two of my testing. Ships are fit the exact same as previous, only now with 2 Drone Link Augmentor IIs (each) and 1 Micro Jump Drive (each).

This time I used a shield tanked Stabber (purely active, no Sig Rad boosting penalties applied) as the target for the drones, switching it up a little. Test is otherwise the same, 1 round with mediums, 1 with heavies. One round with the target stationary, one orbiting 2,500m simulating scrammed, and one orbiting 2,500m while webbed. The stabber's high speed and lower signature radius, in my opinion, will make for a really good test comparing the Dominix to the Armageddon. The results will, hopefully (for the Dominix) show a clear superiority in DPS on the Dominix's side. I also did a test on Roime's suggestion of "fighting an interceptor by MJDing and blapping with sentries"

• Stabber: Stationary
• Hammerhead IIs / Orbit 1,100m
• Armageddon: Overall Average Damage ranked 28.23, with 90% accuracy
• Dominix: Overall Average Damage ranked 34.1, with 97.5% accuracy

-Here we already see a huge improvement over the results we'd seen previously with the frigate. The Dominix pulls a VERY clear and concise lead over the Armageddon in effectively applied DPS. Although this situation is very unlikely in PvP, but yeah.

• Stabber: Stationary
• Ogre IIs / Orbit 1,200m
• Armageddon: Overall Average Damage ranked 53.18, with 75% accuracy
• Dominix: Overall Average Damage ranked 61.2, with 80% accuracy

-Again, while the situation will be uncommon in most PvP, the Dominix came ahead the clear winner with higher accuracy and much higher DPS.

• Stabber: Orbit - Scrammed
• Hammerhead IIs / Orbit 950m to 1,700m
• Armageddon: Overall Average Damage ranked 35, with 97.5% accuracy
• Dominix: Overall Average Damage ranked 33.02, with 90% accuracy

-Unfortunately, the Dominix not only did worse than the Armageddon here, it did worse than it did previously with the ship sitting still. It's entirely possible it just got really unlucky with the misses, but it still missed.

• Stabber: Orbit - Scrammed
• Ogre IIs / Orbit 1,850m to 2,900m
• Armageddon: Overall Average Damage ranked 52.25, with 80% accuracy
• Dominix: Overall Average Damage ranked 59.45, with 92.5% accuracy

-Luckily (for it) the Dominix managed to reach out and take the lead where it really counts in this test: using oversized drones. The damage boost (about 11%) over the Armageddon isn't MUCH but it's noticeable, especially considering how much more reliable the damage was.

• Stabber: Orbit - Webbed
• Hammerhead IIs / Orbit 1,000m to 1,200m
• Armageddon: Overall Average Damage ranked 31.88, with 92.5% accuracy
• Dominix: Overall Average Damage ranked 33.77, with 95% accuracy

-Dominix had a slight lead over the Geddon here. (At a point like this, the bonus, while noticeable, does not justifiably "make the Dominix a better drone boat" than the Armageddon)

• Stabber: Orbit - Webbed
• Ogre IIs / Orbit 1,100m to 1,300m
• Armageddon: Overall Average Damage ranked 43.63, with 70% accuracy
• Dominix: Overall Average Damage ranked 61.52, with 90% accuracy

-Bingo. The real power of the Dominix's (tracking) bonus rears its head at exactly this moment, and it is at exactly this moment where the bonus for the first time becomes something actually respectable and not something to scoff at (disregarding sentry drones). That is a very distinct advantage on the Dominix's part.



So now with that test, we can see that the Dominix, against a properly tackled cruiser, gains a significant boost when using Heavy Drones against cruisers. It's nearly double the output of the drones you OUGHT to be using, as well. With optimism in hand, let's see if this bonus can also apply to Roime's suggestion of anti-interceptor combat, the glorious MicroJump Drive/Sentry Drone combo. In order to keep the test fair, Curator II sentries were chosen. The reason for this is, while they don't have the DPS and tracking of Gardes, or the range of Warden's, they offer a nice balance between the two at the moment. For the range they can achieve, they offer the highest level of tracking. And we need to keep the two ships AS CLOSE in performance to each other as we possibly can. Because if the Armageddon can do it as easily as the Dominix, then the Dominix's bonus becomes lackluster.

(tl;dr: I used Curators on both ships rather than buffing the range of Gardes on the Domi because even if the Dominix can do it with Gardes, if the 'Geddon can do it with Curators then the bonus doesn't matter [in this specific situation])

So here are the results:

Armageddon w/5x Curator IIs, Micro Jump Drive to ~100km from tackling interceptor.
Deploy Drones, and engage target, while Interceptor is attempting to cover the distance (smartly)

Curators Destroy Interceptor: Y/N?
-> N

The Curators did not manage to destroy the incoming Malediction. While they did hit and get some decent damage, an interceptor with 50% armor is tackling you just as easily as with 100%.

Dominix w/5x Curator IIs, Micro Jump Drive to ~100km from tackling interceptor.
Deploy Drones, engage target during Interceptor approach.

Curators Destroy Interceptor: Y/N?
-> N

Drat, the Dominix couldn't manage it on equal grounds. Still got a few shots into the poor Inty, but it wasn't enough.

[Another potential test may be performed shortly]

ExAstra good work on the tests

a lot of people have said it in this thread but the current Domi plan isnt all that grate some people do genuanly seem to like it as i have stated however i view it as a Joke in the Joke.

I do agree with the Effects Buff to Drones this would put the Domi in a Strong Drone ship and then with later Drone buffs it could be reviewd if to stong but i 100% Agreee Effects would be better than the Current Planed "thing"

- Temai

The Megathron gained an 8% turret dps increase before considering what an extra low gives you.